>is it still DnD
>Maximuus
now theres a more usefull post.
First up
>synergies between classes dont exist
thats sadly a 5e problem. i dont know why but somehow i think Mearls was to blame for this descision. People wanted their character to stand on their own after beeing forced into mandatory teamplay in the previous edition.
>- Jump/disengage = ennemies don't ever have any AOO and their melee haven't any control on the battlefield.
- Backstab = easy advantages leading to many useless spells/features/(bonus) action.
- Backstab = huge bonus over the AI
- Highground = easy advantage leading to many useless spells/features/(bonus) action.
- Highground = easy disadvantages for your ennemies. Combined with the advantage it's a god mode.
- Surfaces created by items break your concentration way too often (and if you dodge the arrow, the fire will still spread and break your concentration)
- Eating pig head in combats as a bonus action (looks ridiculous and) heal more HP than healing potion
- Dipping your sword in candle (looks ridiculous and) give players free additionnal damages over the AI.
- Shoving is so easy and OP that it's like an "instant win button" rather than a tactical choice.
Another issue that was solved in the previous two editions that had Disengage by default.
honestly jump irks me but mostly because its animation is ugly and because i dont see why it doesnt get an AoO, personally i think jump should be seperate from a disengage and it should provoke AoO as its reach is too high.
now on jump into backstab, actually RAW you can move AROUND an enemy in DnD without provoking AoO unless you leave the range of another enemy while doing so.
I personally never understood this ruling but flanking requires two characters anyway so its not like its particulary usefull to jump behind your enemy, at least RAW it isnt.
From what i understand the point of contention is that BG3 does backstabs while keeping this rule.
I see my issue with this, but i dont hate backstabs, i always figured DnD does backstabs weird (or more to the point, i never understood why DnD doesnt have a rule for facing, which is pretty much a staple of tile based combat systems).
The easy solution is to make Jumping vulnerable to AoO, keep disengage as a 5 foot step and change the ruling of AoO to be "leaving a threatened space" opposed to "leaving the range of the triggering character"
Should be a relativeley simple fix that alleviates about half of your concerns.
>surfaces
i dont mind.t hey are good.
the only reason people dont like them is because the Original Sin games had them
>break concentration
good. Positioning should be extremeley important for casters and quite frankly they are incredibly overtuned in 5e anyway.
>eating pig heads
well theres a video game issue where any food is the same, but i agree that eating food shouldnt count as a bonus action, it doesnt bother me much tho.
>Dipping a sword in the candle.
im more concerned into dipping your bow into a candle but admittedly id prefer a system where you actually have to apply oil to it.
its strange that this isnt already a thing since lighting oil on fire is.
>Shoving
i like for honor so im not complaining about cheesing by ledging. Or actually i did because one of my players finished the boss i was hyping up for half a year by throwing her off a cliff.
but for what its worth. 5e doesnt do "combat as sport", it does "combat as war".
Logically throwing someone off a high cliff should probably kill them, and doing so isnt very hard. Positioning matters.
All in all i agree with some of your points. But i think a few of them like the eating stuff is not that big a deal and other things could be fixed very easily, either by larian or by a mod that probably wouldnt be a lot of work to do
EDIT:
On height advantage. i simply cannot agree with you on that one. i think thats a good ruling and it mirrors the rules for concealment.
Now cover tends to be an AC bonus, i dont realy like how 5e does these thigns anyway. but at the end of the day shooting someone wwho stands on a ledge on top of your is bound to be harder than shooting someone whose profile is fully visible to you.
Likewise, shooting someone from a highground where its harder for the other to cover himself with a shield, duck behind cover or generally to reduce their target area.
I dont care if its balanced as long as it makes sense which it does in this case.
EDIT:
>Just dont use it
i dont agree with "Just dont use it"
and i understand the point of people not seeing that as an excuse.
Its a game created to take advantage of what the game world gives you. Therfore any option given to you should be a sound one.
i just dont see most of them as that bad.
My primary issue would be with AoOs and Jump, especialy jump i suppose.
I think ruling AoOs to trigger on leaving a threatened area (wether or not they enter another threatened area) would do a lot to mitigate larians problem with melee stickyness (OS2 had very much a simmilar problem).
It would of course also not be RAW dnd, but stickyness in general is something that 5e struggles with hence why the infamous Tunnel Fighter Sentinel Polearm Mastery build is considered "OP" despite only doing what your average Fighter could do in other editions.
Disengage wouldn't be a problem if it was an action rather than a bonus action. As an action it would be a tactical choice or a meaningfull decision.
The only problem is that it's a bonus action. Being engaged in melee doesn't really mean something even for casters and ranged because even if you suffer a "threatened" status"... you just have to disengage as a bonus action to perform your action without any malus. Ennemies won't ever trigger any AOO and being engaged never really matter because you can disengage for free.
Untie disengage and jump would be a good first step but it's really not enough.
Flanking doesn't exist in BG3. I won't argue about moving behind ennemies for free in D&D or the advantage you would have (or not...) but what's call "backstab" is the advantage you have on your attack roll when you're behind an ennemy. It means that your melee characters always have advantage on their attack roll for free and that you'll always use the same tricks again and again.
The flanking optionnal rule would increase the synergy between characters, it would create conditions (2 characters in melee) and it would create consequences (you can be flanked).
It's the same about highground. I'm 100% fine with "bonuses" due to highground - better range, even a small flat bonus to attack roll -...
But now you have an advantage on your attack rolls. Combats are really uninterresting in long term because you can have the best bonus to your %to hit for free. Backstab for melee, highground for ranged/casters.
I'm not really sure I read someone saying "remove backstab and highground as source of bonuses"... But a lot ask Larian to remove them as "source of advantage" (the advantage of D&D).
It's a bit the same about shoving. Shoving someone is really a cool feature but as a bonus action, once again it becomes very powerfull because you can do it at each turn + perform your usual action.
If you struggle in combats, you don't have to think and try to understand how it works, what you could have done better, where to position your characters or something... Just press the shove button and you'll win. Again, the main problem is that it's a bonus action and that you can shove creatures way too far (distance is not related to your strenght) .. not that you have the choice to shove your target.
About surfaces I'm not going to talk about DoS... I don't care but you're wrong according to me because it completely break the concentration mechanic. Your concentration is broken all the time so all those spells are close to useless.
When you dodge the arrow or the potion, the fire surface is still created under your feet so you always take damages. This is a problem for concentration spells but not only...
Except if your cleric concentrated on bless is 200M away from combats, your position DOESN'T matter because ennemies always have arrows or surfaces potions. They can throw them very far/high, hitting you with the fire surface even if the attack fail.
It looks like Larian want to create new/additionnal mechanics and that's very cool to me.
The problem is that those mechanics are too powerfull. They usually say in interviews that D&D is about players agency and choices but in combats their decisions completely lead to the opposite.
There are tons of possibilities and spells and actions and classes features and so on in D&D but in BG3 only Larian's homebrew really matter. If you use them, you'll win. If you don't, you'll die.
And it's not a matter of exploit or OP build (like I heard it was in DoS with necrofire / the armor system or something). These rules completely overshadowed everything else and whatever your class, your skills, your knowledge of the rules... You'll always play the same after a few hours because there's only one good way to deal with BG3's combats.
